Asra Tamamonomae - The Legendary Fox is here in all of her glory!

WIP

Asra Tamamonomae—an MD that probably needs no introductions. As I’ll say for the 3rd and final time, this was the kit I thought I’d never own; she goes for a high price tag, she comes with a substantial amount of parts, it looks really annoying to get everything to look right, and her balloons for a chest did not appeal me at the time. However, ever since I built the Regalias, despite my not-so-great time with them, I wanted to go for another one anyway with Nine-Tails, but somehow I got appealed to Tama instead, as she would be a first for many—the first girl who’s tan, who has a green color scheme, and who would be my first Asra. Now that I got her built up, what do I think of her so far?

Well goddamn, ain’t she flippin’ gorgeous. First, I’m not really huge into her bare form as I’m not someone into bare limbs anyway and it doesn’t help how flesh rings are used instead of just full upper arms and thighs. Her feet are comically big and her hands are colored ever so slightly differently than the rest of her skin, and as you can see I kept the gray stomach piece on as swapping those pieces look like a pain in the ass. As for her big honkers, I can’t say I don’t like them. I am surprised to see in the manual that they tell you to just glue the shoulder blades in place, which, yeah that’s what I ended up doing.

Really what I came here for was her armored form, and goddamn it fucking rocks. There’s so much going on in the head which I really like for some reason, I love her mask, I also like how you’re supposed to use an extended neck joint, and even with just her armored limbs she looks damn cool. Once you finish her main body though, the manual goes all over the place on making the armor, and it’s a goddamn hunt going through this sea of runners to make up all the parts and joints that make up her full form. It was quite the mundane task to build everything, but I took my time, sanded the joints that were too tight, and just tacked on some double sided tapes for pieces that were too loose. Luckily, I was able to get away without modifying some joints/pegs at all. The last piece of the puzzle was her staff, and goddamn, it’s stupid top heavy, and it doesn’t help that the PVC hands are mediocre as well. But through some finagling, she can hold it.

Now came the big challenge—how the hell was I gonna pose her? Welp, I came prepared and used one of the stands from my last build, which somehow still caused a minor inconvenience that it couldn’t keep her balanced because I was relying on this small peg that connected Tama and the stand together. Incidentally, I used this $1 stand I got with my Sazanami order, and miraculously, Tama stands up without a hitch. Now, the durability of this stand is highly questionable, but I’ll update you how it fares next time. But, posing Tama herself—having a usable stand makes life a lot easier, and despite how many moving parts there are to her, I was able to get a few poses out of her without much of a hitch. The fact that she comes with so much already makes her photogenic even with simple poses, and if I want to make her be more dynamic, I can just pose her without all the extra armor, and she still looks pretty rad. 

I’m just enamored how elegant, sexy and energetic Tama can be depending on what you fit her. Even OOB, she looks amazing and I can’t express that enough. The green-gray-white-pink aesthetic goes so hard, and I’m really excited to get her painted up, a bit less getting her decaled up, but oh boy, she’s gonna look even better. I’m sure detailing her up is gonna take a while, so, see you then!

Completed

Asra Tamamonomae is complete, and I just gotta say—holy shit. Building Tama herself was one thing, but getting her detailed up? That’s a whole nother story.

As usual, it starts off with painting, and this time around I used a whole bunch of different paints. I’ve expressed my distaste for the flesh rings that Tama’s bare body uses, so it was basically a no brainer to paint them up with Tamiya Light Green, the closest color I can find to her lime green, and I just gotta pat myself in the back because it’s such a simple recolor but does so much for her bare form, that I’m kinda wishing that Tama was a dual body now. I proceeded to plaster the same light green, Vallejo Model Color Red and Gold, Model AIr Steel and Dark Gray across her armored form, which looking at the pics I took, I’m kinda disappointed how most of the colors don’t really stand out as much as the light green I used. If you look really carefully, there’s dark gray inside her shoulder… wings(?) to create an inner frame effect, and doing that took me quite a while. 

You may notice that the gold looks airbrushed… and that’s because it is! Besides my experience with Durga Darkness, it has been a pain painting gold by hand, especially when it comes to joints, so for the first time, my dad contributed to a girlpla kit, airbrushing the gold for me, as I had to admit it, as much as I’m rooted into this hobby… >!I do not know how to airbrush… yet!<

Next was panel lining, which even though she rocked a mostly dark color scheme, there was still a lot to panel. A common trend I saw with painted Tama builds was that her hair was actually panel lined, so I took a stab at it myself, and I dig it. If Tama’s armored head wasn’t already busy enough, this adds even more flair, but it does kinda help out accentuate the hair as it’d look pretty plain otherwise against the rest of the head.

It was time for the big challenge—the dreadful amount of decals she comes with. Luckily, I came prepared with a set of third party decals from Snowfire, which they even included some bonus red decals I took advantage of! However, it was still very much a challenge. Tama the Race Queen? Nah, she’s more like the goddamn race car herself. The amount of decals she has is innumerable, not to mention how more than a few of them are… EXTREMELY SMALL! To my surprise, the third party decals are not immune to problems. While not as close as Kotobukiya or Bandai, some of the decals can tear even when applying Mr. Mark Setter and topcoat, and the green sucks. I’m sure the problems boil down to the fact that they are thin decals, but fortunately, the sheets do come with a lot of extras, just in case you do make a mistake. 

Last and certainly not least, I gave Tama a flat coat as usual and it was time to pose.

First, I was really glad how good bare Tama ended up being and how much more photogenic she became with the details I added. To my great surprise, her bare form can hold the staff better than her armored form. I really do understand the disdain for ball jointed wrists now. After a few shots, I changed up her limbs to her light armored form, and my god, I was just in awe even before I put everything on. I didn’t get the chance to get a fingerboard for Tama, so I improvised, and used her staff as a hoverboard instead. If you don’t think that goes hard, uhh, you’re wrong. Goddammit I need a third body just to display her in her light armored form, but as I want to get my money, time and effort’s worth, I slapped everything together to her completed form—and goddamn, she is bewitching. Is she extremely hard to move? More than ever, and you can probably see that I just didn’t bother giving her different poses at all. But, her big… personality, her tan, her color scheme, all the extra paint and decals, she is by far the best looking girlpla I have yet. It didn’t take my sanity away like doing the Regalias, nor did it take everything to get her perfect like Kongo. I have no regrets deciding to pick her up, at a steep cost, and I’ll probably do it again if her AUV version does come out.

With all that said, phew, I’m totaled. I’m not exhausted, but I’m definitely gonna take a break. Space for my girlpla is now severely low, and what I want to do next… is not even out yet. I’ll be coming for you Mad Wolf… but for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I’ll see you around!